Ah Starfield, the game that left the collective consciousness long ago. In her review, Alice Bee (RPS in peace) said that it was such a large thing it ultimately felt “small, cold and unlived in”. I remember thinking the same. Would I have thought differently if it had copious amounts of gore? No. But would I have had a better time? Probably yes. Well, a former senior artist at Bethesda has revealed in an interview with Kiwi Talkz podcast (cheers VGC for the spot) that they’d originally planned for it to have decapitations but decided against them in the end.
Dennis Mejillones, who worked at Bethesda for almost 12 years – was asked why Starfield didn’t end up as bloodthirsty as other games in the back catalogue, like Fallout 4. He explained that it had more to do with technical limitations than anything else, specifically “implications with the different suits” and how certain helmets might react to being cut and having the “meat caps for the bottom where the flesh is”.
Eventually, Mejillones says, the systems “turned into a big rat’s nest of all these things you had to account for”. The game’s character creator also “evolved quite a bit” during development, which played a big part in the difficulties.
Mejillones goes on to contrast Starfield’s style with that of Fallout, with Fallout full of “tongue-in-cheek humour” like the Bloody Mess perk where folks just “blow up into goo”. Starfield “was meant to be more lowkey and realistic”, he said.
“We were inspired a lot by things like The Expanse and Star Trek, stuff like that, so I think it just didn’t fit thematically,” Mejillones explained. “And on top of that you have the technical overhead cost to get it to work, so we were kind of like ‘it’s probably better not to include it in this game’.”
Deep down I know that a gorier Starfield wouldn’t have made up for the game being a drag, but man, it would’ve been a little less of a drag if I could’ve rended some space lad’s head from his shoulders with a space shovel or something. At least the streaks of red would’ve added a splash of colour to the grey.